Five Times That Zoe Chased Jamie And The One Time
by enchantment1972
Summary: They say that are five stages of grief but for Jamie and Zoe there were five stages of falling in love. Throw in another two stages for a proposal and a reunion and you have a love story that's all theirs.


**Author's Note:** I tend to write things backward when I name alien cultures. That's your hint for when Jamie catches Zoe. ;)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything in relation to Dr. Who.

**Five Times That Zoe Chased Jamie And The One Time That He Caught Her**

Zoe releases a squeal of excitement as Jamie chases her around the TARDIS console. "Jamie! What has gotten into you?" questions Zoe breathlessly. "I thought that you wanted a game of Trivial Pursuit!"

Jamie shoots her a predatory gaze as he circles around the console, slowly making his way to her. "Aye," he replies. "And that's what I'm doing, isn't it, lass? I'm in pursuit of you!"

Zoe suddenly becomes ramrod stiff as she straightens to her full height and shrieks, "Jamie McCrimmon! Are you calling me _**trivial**_?"

One fear-stricken gaze and a heated glower moments later and Zoe is now the one chasing him.

"Zoe?" asks Jamie timidly as he approaches her with both hands behind his back.

"Yes, Jamie?" she replies with equal parts curiosity and suspicion.

He looks down at the floor before he glances up hopefully and extends an armful of flowers out to her. He clears his throat and declares, "These are for you."

"Why Jamie," exclaims Zoe in sheer delight, "these are beautiful! Wherever did you find them?"

"In the TARDIS gardens," answers Jamie with pride seeing that Zoe is so pleased with his gift. He clears his throat again to call her attention away from the flowers and holds out a box of chocolates for her. "These are for you as well."

Zoe removes the lid off of the box and gushes, "Oh, Jamie, they're my favorite ones!" She's about to rush into his arms to thank him properly when something occurs to her. She tilts her head and considers his generosity before finally asking, "Jamie, this is all really so wonderful, but what have I done to deserve this? You know it's not my birthday."

"No," replies Jamie hesitantly, "no, it's not. But I read in this article that you don't need to wait for a special occasion to show your appreciation for someone that you care for."

Zoe smiles widely and clutches her presents to her chest before inquiring curiously, "What article is that?"

Jamie reaches behind him and pulls out an issue of Cosmopolitan that was tucked into his belt. He points to the page that he has ear marked and she reads the title, 'Ten Ways To Show Your Appreciation'.

Zoe blinks a few times and bears a slight blush as she reads some of the suggestions that the article lists and only looks up when Jamie clears his throat to draw her attention.

"So," he begins with a slight shuffle to his feet and an expectant gaze at her answer, "do you think that you'd be interested in doing Number Nine?"

Zoe's eyes widen until they are bulging and she starts hitting him with her bouquet until he darts down the hall with her in hot pursuit. She continues to pelt him with chocolates as he begs, "At least tell me why you're upset! Is it because I didn't buy you the perfume or did I choose the wrong number?"

Zoe is standing stock still in shock as she watches Jamie experimenting with the item in his hand. She simply stares at him, frozen in place, as he pulls on it this way and that, nearly stretching it out of shape.

"Jamie," she croaks helplessly. "What are you doing with that?"

"I found it in your room," he declares distractedly, the majority of his attention focused on an intense study of the object in question. "What do you have this for anyway?" he asks as he gives it another twist and tug. "It's pretty and all but it's way too flimsy to be of any use in a real fight."

"A fight?" questions Zoe incredulously. "Jamie, exactly what do you think that is?"

"Well, it's a slingshot, of course!" he replies confidently. "Although why you need such a fancy one is beyond me."

Zoe swallows down her embarrassment to inform him, "Jamie, that's not a slingshot. It's my underwear."

"Yeah, right, Zoe," laughs Jamie disbelievingly. "And I'm a Yeti! You really expect me to believe that this poor excuse of fabric is actually your undergarments? Why, it'd be even more useless as underwear than it would be as a slingshot! One quick tug and it would tear right off of you!"

Silence falls as realization dawns for Jamie when Zoe growls out between clenched teeth, "That's sort of the idea!"

"Oh," mumbles Jamie. "Um…aye…um…I…I have to go be going now. Bye!" He takes off like a shot down the corridors with Zoe following rapidly at his heels.

"Jamie McCrimmon!" she screeches as they run past the Doctor. "You give me that back right now!"

The Doctor briefly glances their way before continuing his repairs on the TARDIS. He works on adjusting the sonic screwdriver to the correct setting as he muses aloud, "I told that boy to stay out of her drawers."

"Jamie McCrimmon! Give that back to me this instant!" demands Zoe hotly as she struggles with Jamie in an effort to reclaim her journal.

"Calm down, lass," soothes Jamie. "I found it in the library where you must have left it. I haven't read it." He gives her a cheeky grin when he holds it up out of her reach and adds, "Yet."

"That's my private journal, Jamie! It contains all of my most intimate thoughts! You have no business reading it!" shouts Zoe as Jamie repeatedly dodges her attempts to relieve him of his newfound prize.

"Aye, I'll say they're intimate!" states Jamie with great interest as he twists away from her and flips through a few pages. "Look at some of the things that you were up to before you came to live on the TARDIS!"

He scans the handwritten lines as quickly as possible until his gaze stalls on one line in particular. "Ach! What's this?" He turns to stare at her in disbelief and his tone betrays a slight trace of jealousy as he demands to know, "Zoe Herriot! Who exactly did you do Number Seven with?"

Zoe blushes furiously as she tries once more to retrieve her journal but to no avail. She stamps her foot in frustration and her temper flares as she orders, "Never you mind about that, just hand it over!"

"No," declares Jamie stubbornly. "Not until I've seen what other shenanigans that you've been up to without me!" Zoe's lunge is almost successful but for the lightning fast reflexes of the young Highlander.

His grasp around the journal tightens as he bolts down the hall with Zoe mere steps behind him, all the while demanding the return of her journal. Jamie's taunt of, "You'll have to catch me first," is cut short when he unexpectedly falls through a hole in the console room's floor.

Zoe immediately kneels alongside the hole and peers down it, asking worriedly, "Jamie! Oh, Jamie, are you alright? Are you badly hurt?"

Jamie groans, "Only my pride."

"Well, it serves you right!" admonishes Zoe, her anger quick to return once she realizes that Jamie is unharmed.

"Oh, hello, Jamie," greets the Doctor's echoing voice from within the hole. "I had to remove some of the flooring in order to reach some of the console's more intricate wiring so please be careful and watch your step." He picks up Zoe's journal and reaches up through the hole to hand it to her. "Here, Zoe, I believe this belongs to you."

"Thank you, Doctor," chirps Zoe as she heads back to the kitchen to finish her lunch that Jamie had so rudely interrupted.

"Aye, thanks," moans Jamie with more than a bit of sarcasm.

"You're welcome, Jamie," replies the Doctor kindly. "Now, could you please do me a favor and hand me that mallet? That's a good lad. Also, if you could explain to me exactly what is Number Seven?"

They had landed on Mars in an area widely inhabited by Ice Warriors. Thankfully, it was in an era where the Ice Warriors had become the universe's ally instead of its enemy. Unfortunately, they had also landed during the festival that allows the female of their species to lay claim to a mate.

It was similar to Earth's concept of Sadie Hawkin's Day. A female would choose the male that she wished to have as her mate and if she caught him, then he was hers. After much indignant sputtering on the Doctor's part after he was declared too old to participate in the race, it was Jamie's turn to sputter incredulously when he was informed that he had been chosen as a potential mate.

Jamie had begged and pleaded with Zoe to enter the race so that she could claim him for her own. Zoe readily agreed until Jamie laughed a little too long and hard at an Ice Warrior's remark of, "I don't see what differenc-c-c-e it will make, human, your companion appears-s-s to be just as frigid as our rac-c-c-e."

Zoe briefly considered leaving him to his fate as all outsiders were forbidden to interfere unless they were actual participants. Besides, it was in Zoe's opinion that as slow as the Ice Warriors moved, if you weren't able to outrun one then you deserved to be caught.

Despite her obvious upset and Jamie's obliviousness to that fact, Zoe decided to enter the race to win Jamie as her mate. After all, nobody wanted an Ice Warrior onboard the TARDIS and the Doctor kept the current temperature cold enough as it was.

"Everyone to the s-s-starting line, pleas-s-s-e. The rac-c-c-e is about to begin," announces the judge for the contest.

Zoe crouches into position as the female Ice Warrior vying for Jamie's attentions eyes her with cold disdain. The judge raises his gun into the air and fires off a blast signaling that the race has begun.

It takes Zoe a few minutes to accustom herself with the icy terrain before she is sure enough of her footing to break out into a run. Her competition is quite a ways ahead of her making short confident strides towards her prey.

Jamie is scrambling over mounds of snow trying his best to remain out of the female Ice Warrior's reach while keeping within Zoe's. Moments later he is tackled to the ground by a small bundle of arms, legs and grinning teeth.

"Jamie, I did it!" crows Zoe victoriously. She hugs him tight as she breathes into his ear, "I've got you, Jamie McCrimmon! You're all mine!"

"Aye," murmurs Jamie fondly, "I most certainly am." He abruptly pulls away only far enough to stare at her in exasperation. "Are you just realizing that _now_?"

Zoe's laughing response and their combined embrace is enough to warm anyone's heart, even that of an Ice Warrior.

"Come on, Zoe!" beseeches Jamie. "I promise that I'll catch you!"

"I don't know, Jamie," frets Zoe as she peers down from her precarious perch in the tree. "It seems like an awfully long drop."

"Alright then," concedes Jamie in defeat. "I guess that you'll just have to stay up there until I find the Doctor and we can both figure out a way to get you down."

"Oh, don't leave me here alone, Jamie!" cries Zoe. "Those Drowpuedam could come back at any moment!" She surveys the ground below her with trepidation but musters her courage and states, "Okay, I'll jump down but you have to _swear_ to catch me Jamie McCrimmon!"

"I wouldn't even dream of doing otherwise, Zoe," vows Jamie as he moves into position to catch her. "You'd never let me hear the end of it," he mutters under his breath, too low for her to hear.

Seeing Zoe cling to the tree like it's a lifeline and knowing that they don't have much time, Jamie shouts, "Zoe, behind you!" Shocked by Jamie's outburst, Zoe loses her balance as she spins around to look behind her and promptly falls out of the tree and into Jamie's arms.

"Ooof!" grunts Jamie as he catches her. "You know, lass, you're a lot heavier than you look."

"It's all muscle," insists Zoe as she tries to wriggle out of his grasp. When he refuses to release her, she asks, "Are you planning on letting me go anytime soon?"

"No," replies Jamie seriously as he gazes down at her. "No, I'm not." He kneels down onto the ground to bend on one knee while keeping Zoe in his grasp. "Zoe Herriot, you are my best friend and my only love. You drive me crazy in all the best ways and all of the worst ones. You are everything that I could ever want in a friend and a wife and I love you with all of my heart. Zoe, will you marry me?"

Zoe's eyes hold unshed tears and although her response is both swift and efficient, as she prefers, it is no less heartfelt in her reply. "Oh, Jamie, I love you too. Yes, I will marry you." She places her hand alongside his cheek and murmurs, "My Highlander," before gently kissing his lips.

This is how the Doctor finds them as he runs towards them while yelling, "Jamie! Zoe! Stop that this instant and start running! The Drowpuedam have found us!" He runs a few feet more with the couple trailing giddily behind him when he suddenly turns his head and calls back with a huge grin, "Oh, and congratulations!"

Then there was a War Chief and they lost. They lost each other and their memories because a race of beings, Time Lords to be exact, thought that they would be better off in their own proper place and time away from the Doctor, away from each other. The Time Lords thought that their far superior intellect entitled them to make decisions for other people, that they knew what was best because they made decisions with their heads instead of their hearts. They were wrong.

Brokenhearted and with nowhere left to run, Zoe and Jamie were forced to leave the Doctor, the TARDIS and each other to return to their lives before their travels, leaving their heads none the wiser for what their hearts were missing.

That is, until a man in a blue box appeared before them, hours after they had been sent home by the Time Lords. He had a new face and a new demeanor but that same mad grin and twinkle in his eyes. He told them that he came to right a wrong before he placed his fingertips on their temples and restored their memories.

Then he took them far away to another place and time where he knew that the Time Lords would never look for them and that they could live out the rest of their lives in peace. They had thought about travelling with him again but although he was still the Doctor to them and that they would always love him, he wasn't that man anymore. They knew that part of their life was over and that a new chapter was about to begin.

The Doctor stayed long enough to both give the bride away and stand as the best man at their wedding before taking his leave. So with a fond farewell and a promise to visit often, the Doctor left Jamie and Zoe to start their new life together.

It took the couple a year to settle into their new surroundings but it had been made much easier by the Doctor's generosity. Prior to their landing, he had arranged for their own home that had plenty of carpets and doors, but no mortgage, and credit bars for each of them that held unlimited currency. The Doctor kept his promise and visited them often. Although they weren't children of his blood, they were the children of his hearts.

He found them sitting on their hillside gazing out at the sea and watched them in silence. He listened to them talk and laugh and murmur endearments of love while discussing all of life's possibilities for their son and daughter, both who were expected to be born any day now.

The Doctor had vowed to not only be there for the birth of their children, but to act as an honorary grandfather as well. He was a grandfather once, he could do so again.

He stood quietly in the background deciding to give them a few more minutes before announcing his arrival as it was always such a pleasure to see them so happy. Being the Doctor, he did what he always did which was something he wasn't supposed to do. He looked into their timelines and he saw theirs, their children's and their children's children, all of them shining bright and stretching far into the future and across the universe. The storm was definitely over for them and good things were coming their way for his children, his Jamie and Zoe. Just as it should be.

**THE END**


End file.
